Thursday, December 22, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
The Title Design of Saul Bass - Video
The Title Design of Saul Bass from Ian Albinson on Vimeo.
To celebrate the release of the highly anticipated and altogether fantastic Saul Bass monograph, one of the 11 best art and design books of 2011 and among the most important design books ever published, Art of the Title editor Ian Albinson put together this brilliant brief visual history of Bass’s most celebrated work, which influenced generations of designers, animators, and visual storytellers alike.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Wonder Object on Vimeo
Wonder Object from Mark & Angela Walley on Vimeo.
Artist Gary Schott utilizes his skills as a Metalsmith to create playful and beautiful mechanized objects. This documentary was produced in association with Southwest School of Art. Learn more about their BFA program at swschool.org. Learn more about the artist at GarySchott.com. Learn more about the Filmmakers walleyfilms.com.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Innovation: The Six Sides of the Box
No one can deny that getting out of the box is a good thing to do. Seems like a no-brainer, eh? Kind of like helping little old ladies cross the street. Or tearing down the Berlin Wall.
But before you start planning your heroic escape, answer me this:
What the heck is the box, anyway?
What is this so-called thing that keeps us so contained, confined, caged, trapped, claustrophobic, and otherwise unable to succeed?
Let's start with the basics. A box has six sides, including the top and the bottom.
If we can understand what these six sides are, we'll know what we're dealing with -- and this knowledge will improve our chances of getting out. Or, as Fritz Perls once said, "Awareness cures."
Let us proceed...
1. FEAR: If you want to raise the odds of being trapped in a box for the rest of your life, all you need to do is increase the amount of fear you feel.
Fear inhibits. Fear paralyzes. Fear subverts action. Indeed, when fear rules the day, even reacting is difficult. Fear not only puts us in the box, it makes it almost impossible to get out the box.
Fear of what?
Fear of judgment. Fear of failure. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being revealed to be an impostor. Fear of this. Fear of that. And fear of the other thing, too.
Do you think it's an accident that Peter Drucker devoted his entire life to driving fear out of the workplace? Or course not.
Fear sucks. And precisely what it sucks is the life right out of you. There is no box without fear. Get rid of fear and you get rid of the box.
2. POWERLESSNESS: Powerlessness is the state of mind in which people think they have no choice -- that they are victims of circumstance, that the act of attempting anything new is futile.
It's why Dilbert has become the patron saint of most cubicle dwellers.
Some in-the-box people have dwelled in the state of powerlessness for their entire life, going all the way back to childhood, overpowered (or disempowered) by parents, schools, and who knows what else.
If you work in a corporation, you've seen this powerlessness paradigm in spades -- as the "powers-that-be" don't always take kindly to the ideas, input, and grumblings of the "rank and file."
If you're feeling powerless, not only are you in the box, it's highly unlikely that you'll be able to muster the energy, intention, or urgency to get out of it.
3. ISOLATION: Boxes are usually small and confining. Rarely is there room for more than one person. Isolation is the result. There's no one to talk to, no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to collaborate with.
Curiously, solitary confinement is the biggest punishment our society doles out -- second only to the death sentence. Being cut off from the tribe has been a very effective "behavior modification" technique for centuries.
When you're in the box, that's exactly what's happening.
And while your isolation may give you a momentary feeling of much-needed privacy, safety, and relief from the judgment of others, it's fool's gold. Sitting in the dark, being completely on your own, vision obscured -- all reduce your chances of getting out.
4. ASSUMPTIONS: Assumptions are the guesses we make based on our subjective interpretation of reality. They are short cuts. Lines drawn in the sand.
We end up taking things for granted because we are either too lazy to get down to the root of things or too entranced by our own beliefs to consider an alternative.
Ultimately, it is our assumptions that shape our world. The world is the screen and we are the projector, seeing only what we project -- which is all too often merely a function of the assumptions we've made.
As one wise pundit once put it, "When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees our pockets."
Bottom line, we see what we are primed to see. Change your assumptions and you change the world -- starting with your own.
5. MENTAL CLUTTER:
If you find yourself in the box, it would be fair to say that the box contains you. But what do you contain?
If you are like most people in today's over-caffeinated, twitterfied, fast food, information overloaded world the answer is: too much.
With the amount of information doubling every few years, most of us have way too much on our minds. Too much to do and not enough time.
We have no time for musing. No time for pondering. No time for reflecting. No time for contemplating, incubating, or making new connections -- behaviors that are essential to true out-of-the-box thinking.
The result? Not a good one.
We glom onto the first seemingly "right idea" that comes our way -- or else desperately try to declutter our minds with an endless series of mindless distractions that only increase the amount of clutter we need to process. Ouch.
6. NARROW MINDEDNESS:
When you're in a box, it's hard to see. Sight lines are limited. Vision is obscured. We become shortsighted. Our vision conforms to that which confines it. We become, soon enough, narrow-minded.
I'm sure you know a few people like this. Their ability to see beyond their immediate surroundings has become disabled.
When this kind of phenomenon becomes institutionalized, we end up with a bad case of "next quarter syndrome" -- especially in organizations ruled by the need to constantly please profit-seeking shareholders.
Few people are thinking six months out. Few are thinking 12 months out. And almost no one is thinking five years out. Everyone is trapped by the short-term.
What we call "focus" becomes a euphemism for tunnel vision -- just another form of narrow-mindedness that makes getting out of the box about as likely as my credit card company rescinding their usurious late payment fees.
OK. I hope I've not depressed you. That's not my purpose. Neither is it my purpose to obsess about the "problem." But until we know what we're really dealing with, all this hot talk about "getting out of the box" is just hype and a complete waste of time.
NEXT WEEK: Tips and techniques for getting out of the box. Until then, reflect on these questions:
1. What are you afraid of?
2. If you are business leader, how can you reduce fear in the workplace?
3. How can you get reclaim your own God-given power?
4. If you are a business leader, how can you start letting go of control?
5. How can you connect with a more diverse group of collaborators?
6. If you are a business leader, what can you do this week to foster more cross-functional collaboration?
7. How can you identify your three biggest limiting assumptions?
8. If you are a business leader, how can you identify your direct reports' three biggest limiting assumptions?
9. What's the simplest thing you can do this week to decrease the amount of mental clutter in your life?
10. If you are a business leader, how can give people more time think creatively?
11. What can you do this week to dream bigger than you usually do?
12. If you are a business leader, what can you do help your organization conceive a more compelling vision of its future?
Thursday, October 27, 2011
7 Book Publishing Secrets that Every Writer Needs to Know
Not just ebooks, but real dead-tree printed books with covers.
He says the reason he wrote Linchpin is because, “If you want to change people, you must create enough leverage to encourage the change to happen.”
A book gives you that kind of leverage.
Books change lives
Celebrities usually write books to “set the record straight” or explain the twisted story of their rise to stardom.They can’t do that with a magazine article or tweet. It takes more than 140 characters to explain why Paris does what she does, after all.
Changing a reader’s opinion requires space, whether it’s transforming your attitude toward Paris Hilton or changing your thinking about how you do business.
A tweet doesn’t often change someone’s life but books can and do — all the time.
In a small way, books change people’s lives - change your life.
A book is something tangible you can point to as a repository of your knowledge. Unlike a series of blog posts, a book is organized and works as a cohesive unit. People take books more seriously than almost any other form of writing.
Being a book author gives you a level of credibility like almost nothing else.
Let’s face it, saying you’re a book author has a lot more cachet than saying you’re a blogger.
Where’s your book?
If you’re reading Copywriter, you’re undoubtedly a writer, content marketer, or some other type of wizard of words.You’re a writer. Why haven’t you written a book?
Maybe the idea is too big and scary. I’m living proof that it’s not as hard as you might think to face those fears, move forward, and get your book out into the world.
Here are seven secrets Paris and Seth know that you may not know about getting a book written and published:
1. You don’t have to accept rejection
Many people never write their Great American Novel because they think someone might not like it.We writers are sensitive souls and fear of rejection is real. The secret is you don’t have to accept rejection.
Have you ever heard of Mark Victor Hansen?
He’s one of the guys who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul — a book that has made millions of dollars and spawned countless spin-off products.
Yet, that book was rejected 140 times. Mark believed in his book, refused to accept the rejections, and kept going.
Another secret is that rejection often has nothing to do with the quality of your book or your ideas.
Many rejections relate to a publisher’s business decisions and have nothing to do with you or your writing at all.
2. You can learn everything you need to know
Many authors take a peek at the book-publishing business, get completely overwhelmed, and run away.It’s a lot like when you started your own business or your blog.
There’s a learning curve.
The secret is to realize that although writing is a creative process, publishing is a business. Publishing a book is going to require work and a bit of education on your part.
For less than $100 worth of books about publishing before you get started, you can save an enormous amount of time, money and aggravation in the long run.
3. You have to market the book
Even if an enormous New York City publishing house publishes your book, you will have to market it.A first-time author rarely gets help from the publisher. Accept that you will be on your own when it comes to marketing, a fact you'll discover first-hand, the hard way.
When you know that you and only you will be responsible for marketing your book, you won’t be disappointed.
The key is to think like a marketer before you write the first word of your manuscript.
4. You don’t have to sell your soul to “The Man” (unless you want to)
It used to be that you had to beg a Big Publishing Company to give your book idea the time of day.You needed an agent and preferably a lot of money and as noted, the Big Publishing Company could still reject your book on a whim.
Book publishing is different now.
You can publish a book yourself. In the past, self-publishing was often equated to vanity publishing. (In other words, a self-published book was often considered base.)
But now that idea has been turned on its head. Some people argue that being published by a Big Company is more for “vanity” reasons than anything else. It’s certainly not because of all the great marketing support you’ll receive.
You get to say, “My book was published by a Big Company.”
Of course, almost no one outside of New York actually cares about that.
Have you ever looked at a book to check and see which company published it?
Your readers don’t care who published the book. They care whether or not the book is good.
Self-publishing books can be very good because it makes it possible to release books you want to write and hopefully, make a lot more money.
Even Seth Godin ditched his publisher and started The Domino Project so he can have more control over his books.
5. Your online presence and knowledge give you an advantage
Your blog is the beginning of the “author platform” every publisher requires (even if the publisher is you).Today most books — whether paper or pixels — are sold online.
All the online marketing techniques you use to market your blog or digital products work for a book too. You can leverage what you already know.
A blog also gives you a way to do market research.
Chris Anderson said he wrote many parts of The Long Tail based on comments from his blog.
6. You need to spend time and money on your book
As noted above, publishing is a business.If you opt to try and get a traditional book publishing deal, it will take time to find an agent, write a proposal, and send out queries.
If you opt to publish yourself, you’ll need to pay for editorial services, ISBNs, and designers.
You need to accept that these investments are part of the business of your book.
7. You will feel resistance at many points during the publishing process
Every writer experiences some level of anxiety about putting a book “out there.”In his book, The War of Art, author Steven Pressfield talks about the concept of “resistance.” Often authors struggle to get a book out the door.
As a bit of an introvert, an author will worry about putting too much of themself out there on public display or worse, being completely ignored.
The secret is to know that resistance happens; it’s part of the process.
So what’s stopping you?
As a good content marketer, you’re probably churning out articles, blog posts, and ebooks.So, why not publish a real print book too?
It worked out nicely for Seth and Paris, after all. There’s no reason it can’t work for you.
A book is your legacy.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi - NOWNESS
On a shelf in famed Parisian bookstore Shakespeare and Company, the star-crossed love story of a klutzy skeleton and his flame-haired amour plays out amidst Le-Tan’s illustrations of iconic first-edition book covers.
"It's such a beautiful and romantic place,” offers Le-Tan of the antiquarian bookstore. "The perfect setting for our story!” The project started after Jonze asked for a Catcher in the Rye embroidery to put on his wall and the plucky Le-Tan asked for a film in return.
Enlisting French filmmaker Simon Cahn to co-direct, the team wrote the script between Los Angeles and Paris over a six month period, before working night and day animating the 3,000 pieces of felt Le-Tan had cut by hand.
“I love getting performances from, telling stories about and humanizing things that aren’t human,” said Jonze of working with Le-Tan’s characters.
After spending five years adapting Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are, Jonze’s recent shorts include robot love story I’m Here and an inspired G.I. Joe-starring video for The Beastie Boys.
“A short is like a sketch,” he says. “You can have an idea or a feeling and just go and do it.” Here the iconic director reveals his creative process to writer Maryam L'Ange.
How did the film come about?
I met Olympia in Paris through friends of mine. She was just starting to make the bags for her friends. She had a bunch of the scraps in her bag, all of the cut-out pieces of felt. I just loved it. I loved all the artwork she picked, the texture of it, the stitching of the felt. We joked about making a film and just went for it. It was this thing with no schedule, no pressure and no real reason to be—other than just that we thought it would be fun.
Did you write the story together?
Yeah we did. We would look at all the artwork over lunch whenever we would be in the same city, noting any ideas that would just make us smile. It was done like that, with no real plans.
What’s your creative process?
You just start with what the feeling is. For this one the feeling definitely started with the handmade aesthetic and charm of Olympia’s work. Instantly I had the idea of doing it in a bookstore after-hours, imagining the lights coming down and these guys off their books. Me and Olympia both wanted to make a love story, and it was fun to do it with these characters. It evolved naturally and it all just started with the feeling. From there you entertain yourself with ideas that excite you.
Do you go with your gut instinct?
If it cracks me up. We were talking about the skeleton coming off his book and the girl in the Dracula book waving at him. Olympia is someone who is just absurd, she’s used to just saying anything. She just started making the blowjob gesture as a joke to make us laugh but I was like, “We’ve got to do that.” It’s about taking things that could just be a joke while brainstorming and actually going for it and using it.
What inspires you?
People inspire me. Humberto Leon and Carol Lim [from Opening Ceremony] and the confidence and creativity in how they run their business. Pixar’s really inspiring, they make films in the best possible way. They’re always focused on story. I could list a million people that inspire me all the time. David Bowie’s music, Charlie Kauffman, David Russell. A lot of people that I work with too, just conversations I have with them about what we want to do.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Using Twitter makes for good Business
These Twitter tips and tactics for business should be read in that context. It also important to keep in mind that creating a “Strategy for Twitter” is also valuable and essential.
Networking
This is never urgent but it is important as people like doing business with people. Networking with the right people will bring you medium to long term strategic business.- Find bloggers and authorities in your industry and follow them on Twitter and see what they tweet about and what content they link to
- From this content look at what content you can create to tweet and blog about for your own blog
- Retweet their content regularly not just once whether it is a tweet or from their blog
- If they are local, ask to catch up for a coffee
- Request an interview via Twitter and record the interview on video or if that is not possible use a list of questions that you can turn into a written blog post Q & A interview format.
- Publish that interview on your blog and then promote it on Twitter. I can almost guarantee you that they will then promote it to their networks
- Promote them on Twitter with referrals recommending them
- Use Twitter’s private “Direct Message” channel (DM) to connect with influential bloggers and influencers as you may find they respond to that better than an email.
Research
Research keeps you ahead of the curve and is never urgent but often ignored or forgotten.- Put search items into Twitter using key words that are imporatant in your industry or niche. You will find out what is happening globally!
- Search on Twitter to see what is being said about and by your competitors
- Put your brand name into Twitter to find out what is being said about you in real time
- Use # Tags to search on Twitter that will keep you updated on key terms that are vital in your industry. A great tool to do this quickly is hashtags.org
- Use “Advanced Twitter Search” (this provides the capability of doing local searches with a certain mile radius) to keep an eye on news and events locally in your city or region.
- Discover trends using Twitter with tools such as Monitter.com which even allows you the capability to narrow the search to a particular geographic location.
- Tweet links to your surveys on Facebook, blogs or website
Marketing
Twitter is capable of delivering information, content and marketing messages globally and locally to your particular niche. Twitter should be integrated and embedded on as many of your online properties as possible.- Increasing your Twitter followers is the foundation to your Twitter marketing efforts. This should be done in a focused manner by following people in your category using the Twitter “Yellow Pages” tool Twellow.com. Another app that I have found useful to follow the followers of top bloggers in your industry is Tweepi.com
- Run special deals and promotions on Twitter that you can use to drive traffic or move slow moving stock (exanple Dell)
- Announce an event on Twitter
- Include retweet buttons on your content areas of your website and blog that makes it easy for people to share your content
- Integrate Twitter into Facebook
- Load the Twitter app on LinkedIn
- Seek sponsors for an event or contest
- Promote your blog posts on Twitter
- Use # tags at your events to crowd source online mobile marketing
- Include Twitter ID on all your offline and online marketing material
- Automate relevant tweets that span 24 hours so your global customers can receive it in their time zone. SocialOomph.com professional edition can do this both as a once off and as recurring tweets.
- Tweet special Twitter only coupons so you can track the success of your Twitter marketing efforts
Personal Branding
Position yourself as an expert within your company and industry. Personal branding synergizes your corporate brand. A personal Twitter account and blog can enhance both you and your company.- Help solve other people’s problems by answering questions on Twitter
- Tweet links to your blog posts that answer problems and provides tip, tactics and ideas
- Tweet links to your Powerpoint presentations on Slideshare
- Tweet links to presentations recorded on Video and posted to YouTube
- If you are speaking at an event, tweet about it prior to the conference
- Include a link to your personal blog on your personal Twitter account
- Share photos on Twitter that validate your speaking at events and conferences, this will aid and enhance your credibility visually. Twitpic makes this easy and convenient to do on Twitter
Customer Service
Customer service is the the “ultimate” marketing tool as great customer service delivers those all important referrals that take you from compete to collaborate.- Improve customer service (A good case study on this is “ Zappos” an online shoe retailer) by picking up conversations about your company that you might not be aware
- Respond quickly to any problem tweets on your Twitter account to shut down any impending service or potentially damaging PR disasters.
- Check your Twitter account regularly and respond to questions and comments in a timely fashion
So Twitter is about to be a native app in all of Apples new mobile products and will lead to Twitter becoming more viral and embedded in an increasingly social web.
How do you use Twitter for your business? Look forward to hearing your stories!
More Reading
- How to Get Targeted Twitter Followers
- The Marketing Secret About Twitter that Most People Don’t Know
- How To Write A Mind Blowing Headline For Twitter So People Will Read Your Blog
- 30 Terrific Twitter Facts and Figures
- Do Shared Links Last Longer on Twitter or Facebook
- How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
- 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
- 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
- Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter?
- 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content
Monday, October 17, 2011
Global appetite of Universal Soldier
Het Amerikaanse menu met onder ander pork ribs, BBQ sauce, tortillas, aardappel-cheddarsoep en pindakaas.
Het Italiaanse: o.a. pasta en bonensoep, tortellini, makreel in olijfolie en worstjes in blik.
Het Canadese: broodje kaas, broodje hamburger, chocoladekoekje en een tandenstoker.
Kimchi, gebakken rijst, worstjes en witte bonen in saus in het Zuid-Koreaanse pakket.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Thinking of Creativity
Here are 32 questions, designed to help you think creatively about the development of your business. Remember to share them with anyone in your network, who you think might find them useful, using the links below!
- What additional, valuable products or services can I offer to my existing clients or customers (herein called clients)? This is the fastest way to generate a massively profitable boost to your revenue and profits.
- Am I fully utilising technology in my business? Are there processes that I could streamline, which would give me more time to deal personally with my clients and prospective clients?
- How can I improve the way I deliver my services?
- Do I take time out, to thank people as often as I should?
- What new markets could use my products or services?
- How can I improve the quality of my products or services, so that they are of even more value to existing and prospective clients?
- Am I associating with the right kind of people, for what I want to achieve?
- What three things could I do, which would improve the visibility of my business?
- How can I reach 500% more prospective clients with my marketing message?
- How can I make my day-to-day work more fun? This is really important!
- What’s the best way for me to encourage more people, to recommend me to their contacts?
- Is my marketing focused enough?
- How can I improve my time management?
- Do I take action on the ideas I generate, so they have a chance to make a real difference?
- Should I be thinking about doing some kind of joint venture with another, high quality company?
- Am I limiting the development of my business, by not investing in professional help in the areas where I am weakest? If so, which area do I need to invest in first?
- How often do I ask my clients for their feedback, regarding the service they receive from me and what additional services they would like me to offer?
- When was the last time I sat down and studied my marketing goals? If you have not got any written, measurable, specific marketing goals, stop reading this and write some down right now!
- Is it possible that my services look too similar to my competitors? Most service providers look way too alike, so the marketplace uses their fees as a way to judge their value.
- If my services do look too similar to my competitors, how can I differentiate myself, so that I have something uniquely valuable to bring to the marketplace?
- Do I get enough leads and enquiries via my website or blog? If not, how can I increase this, so my site becomes a lead generating machine for my business?
- When was the last time a client sent me a “thank you” note? If this has not happened for a while, it might suggest that you have not exceeded their expectations lately!
- Who would make a good endorsed relationship partner for me?
- Do I attract enough word of mouth referrals? If not, what is this telling me?
- How aware am I, of my client’s problems and challenges? You need to know what’s happening in your client’s world, if you want to be able to really help them.
- Do I have a shallow a network, spread over a wide area – Or a deeper, more meaningful one?
- How many other websites or blogs link to my website or blog? This is important, as inlinks account for the massive majority of your search engine optimization (SEO)
- Am I working to a marketing strategy or am I simply doing tactical marketing?
- Just how good is my customer service? Remember, you don’t compare yourself to what your competitors offer – But to the finest level of service you can possibly offer.
- Do I still have the same passion for my business that I used to have? If the answer to this is yes, get passionate again!
- How many of the people I network with on Twitter, have I actually spoken to or met?
- Are my online marketing activities producing bankable results, or just a ton of meaningless, social media numbers? If you have the friends, followers and fans but not the bankable results, you might want to review your strategy.
- Do I exceed people’s expectations?
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Writer's Blog
We’ve all been there and we’ll all be there again. I, however, like to “light people up,” especially with regard to blogging, so here are some ideas to blow that writer’s block to smithereens and to get those fingers tapping away on your keyboard.
Make art by thinking about how you feel and how you want your readers to feel
This is a hard one, because most of us have numbed out to how we feel, so how in the heck are we supposed to know how we want other people to feel?
Art is where that edge is. It’s where you take a feeling and you explore it by creating something that takes people somewhere. A painting is like a blog. But too often, I think blogging has taken on this sort of half-robotic feel.
Too many of us recycle what has already been said, harp on someone doing something innovative because it makes us feel uncomfortable, or we hide from our readers and use our blogs to do it! We throw up all these fancy plans, or narcissistic “look at me” posts, when in reality, isn’t the goal of blogging to connect with readers? Isn’t it to share how you actually feel? Do you really feel good today? Do you really feel in control? There are moments we do not. That is where the art comes in.
Tell it like it is. Make art. Build it into the blog.
Make art by stepping away from the blog and actually creating something tactile
Cook something, sew something, paint something, or weld something. We’ve numbed out by sitting behind our computers and forgetting what it means to do anything else. Step away from the computer!
This activity doesn’t require the same blogging brain cells that have frozen up on you, and thus, as you make something awesome, those cells will begin to thaw out and suddenly, you’ll throw down the welding torch and rush to the computer. As they say, if you run a marathon, you’re more likely to also write a book. One thing begets another. But please take care! Don’t try to write a blog post while holding the welding torch.
Make art by dreaming big
This one fires me up. I can dream up huge results from my paltry blogging. Some days I want to be on Britain’s Got Talent because of a blog post, I want to get a proper book deal from the blog, but I never want to meet Richard Branson.
That sounds so huge and unreachable, but then if you put those goals in print somewhere, you are focusing yourself on them. Your brain will try to figure out how to make them happen. Britain’s Got Talent automatically TiVos every time it’s on and you have time to watch it, someone shows you a book that you swear you could have written yourself and the art begins to happen.
Perhaps you’ll hire a PR consultant, or you’ll outline the roughs of a book proposal. Perhaps we’ll one day see your welding-while-juggling (or blogging!) act scaring Nick Cannon half out of his wits! That’s doable! That’s making art!
The blogging of art is more about you than about the blog and that’s where the real magic happens.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Thinking Positively
(1) Ability to Trust Your Potential
We are all unique in our own way, we each view and experience the world through our own lens. Ultimately what this means is that nobody can use your abilities the way you can. This is why it is so important to believe in yourself completely. We can read all the books, gain all the knowledge, mirror others achievements and look to others for guidance, but in the end, there is no other person on this planet who knows how to use your abilities quite like you can. We can no doubt learn from others but it is only when we are truly being ourselves that we become powerful. Trust in your abilities and trust that you are the only person alive who can use those abilities to their fullest potential.(2) Choose Wisely
It’s not what society thinks about how you live your life that’s important, but it is paramount to your success as a human being to take a good long hard look at the way you see reality without the interference of the masses who have been brought up to fall in line and live their lives in accordance with a flawed system based on conformity. The most powerful thing you have at your disposal at any given time is the fact that you have the power to make your own decisions. The choices you make today will create the situations and circumstances you find yourself in tomorrow…choose wisely.(3) Successful Thoughts
Education is paramount to success (whatever success means to you) but education is not preparation for life itself…life itself is education, and every single day you are being tested by the thoughts you choose to entertain or repeat. The educated mind is the one that can entertain a thought without accepting it. The only thoughts that play a leading role in your life are the ones you choose to accept as true. Negative thoughts, doubtful thoughts and any thoughts that limit your growth have no place in your mind, so it’s your job as the governor of your mind to banish these useless thoughts from the community you rule inside your head. Your thoughts only have the power you give to them.(4) Accept “what is”
Be willing to abandon any resistance to what “IS” in this moment. Most often we get uptight and dwell upon situations out of our control when we should just “let it go”. You have no control over the long line at the grocery store, traffic jams, or other people’s behavior…stop arguing with reality, you will lose every single time. A negative reaction is to wish it weren’t so, a positive reaction is to accept it as so. We hear people complaining all the time about things out of their control, they complain about the weather, the economy etc, Believe it or not, this is a habit just like everything else. Next time you are faced with a situation that is unpleasant but out of your control, remember that “it is what it is” and any negative response on your part is an argument against reality, and an argument you can never win.(5) Automatic thinking
What have you done today that sets it apart from yesterday, or the day before that. The biggest reasons why people do not achieve their goals is because they haven’t set any to begin with, or they repeat the thoughts and actions as the previous day, month, year or even decade. Start to make at least one significant change each day and over time the results will show. Keep on doing the same things and inevitably you will manifest the same results.(6) Self image
We all have things we believe about ourselves. We may believe that we’re too small, too tall, we’re beautiful, we’re ugly, we’re too sensitive or even too brash. The person we see in the mirror is not who we truly are…the person we see when we look within is who we truly are. Whatever your self image is, stop labeling yourself and begin to work on accepting your beautiful self completely. Life is about self discovery and it can be an amazing journey. Why rip yourself off of an incredible adventure by wasting time focusing on limiting beliefs created by a doubtful mind. If you really want to change your life, never give up on yourself, fall in love with yourself, and know that you’re worth the effort.(7) influence
Taking responsibility for your reactions each day is so important. It is “us” who give power to the people and events that influence our lives on a daily basis. How much power and influence we allow these people or things to have over us is purely down to how we react. The more negative our reaction when someone pushes our buttons, the more power we give to that person, thus, we are more influenced by the outer world. By controlling our reactions and not taking others emotional baggage (anger, jealousy, bitterness) as our own and reacting in kind, then the personal power lies within, and we are more influenced by our inner world.Sunday, April 17, 2011
Writing the Perfect Outline
But how do you design that prefect outline? First off, nothing is universally perfect. Some writers put together comprehensive 20 page point outlines, plotting in every scene, even tossing in lines of potential dialogue. For other writers, breaking down the broad strokes of the eight sequences and making sure there is a clear central obstacle within each sequence is enough. But still others simply clarify the five major plot points.
Part of discovering the perfect outline, however, is trying different approaches and using what works best for you as well as for the script you are writing at the time. The more formulaic the genre (e.g. rom-coms), the more useful a detailed outline can be. An indie drama, on the other hand, may breathe better with more flexibility in the plan.
Regardless the many variables, however, I would argue that the most rudimentary outline must include these FIVE CORE ELEMENTS:
- the protagonist and his or her goal,
- the supporting cast and what they each want,
- the beginning and end,
- the five major plot points, and
- the order of events, sequences, and act divisions.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Use Gestalt Laws to improve your UX - DesignModo
To keep it simple, user experience describes how users perceive a website, what kind of emotions they have when visiting a website, and whether or not they are motivated enough to return. This subjective experience is in a large part based on the visual appearance of a website.
Of course web design is its own field of expertise and one could claim that only experienced designers are capable of designing a good website and therefore provide the basis for high user experiences. There are some basic principles, though, that can help not only professionals to design an appealing website – the so called “Gestalt Laws”.
Figure 1 – Law of Similarity (Source)
Gestalt Laws
Gestalt Laws are simple principles or suggestions of how different elements can be perceived when combining them in a certain way/order. Gestalt Laws can help to create for example structure and a sense of togetherness on a website, they give suggestions on how to draw attention to elements that are important or how to create an impression of balance and stability.
Gestalt Laws find their origin in psychology and were first introduced in the twentieth century. Gestalt is a German term and can be translated with “shape” or “form”. Gestalt laws are basically regularities about how elements are perceived and organized into an unified whole.
The aim of this article is to give an overview of common Gestalt Laws, explain their possible effects, and present examples of how exactly different laws work in the context of a website. Gestalt Laws can seem quite simple, but their effects can have a big impact on a website’s user experience. The following Gestalt Laws will be addressed in this article: the Law of Proximity, the Law of Similarity, the Law of Closure, the Law of Good Continuation, the Law of Figure and Ground, the Law of Simplicity, the Law of Symmetry, and last but not least the Law of Experience.
Law of Proximity
The Law of Proximity indicates that elements that are near to each other tend to be perceived as a single unit. This can be very helpful for e.g. if you want to display two categories of elements on a web page of which each has more than one piece of content. You can easily group the pieces of one category by placing them closer to each other than the distance between the two categories. Figure 2 shows how this Gestalt Law is used on the UX Booth website to group elements that belong together. Different distances between the elements give us the impression of three columns, of which each contains one teaser per article.
Figure 2 – Law of Proximity (Source)
Law of Similarity
The Law of Similarity claims that elements that appear similar are perceived as one unit. So elements that have for e.g. the same color, shape, or other common characteristics, are perceived to be belonging together. This phenomenon can be very useful to group elements together that belong to one category. In Figure 3 you can see how CNN uses this Gestalt Law to present different topics within one news category as a unit.
Figure 3 – Law of Similarity (Source)
Law of Closure
The Law of Closure explains why elements are recognized even if they are incomplete or nonexistent. This is due to our previous experiences and prior knowledge about possible shapes and figures, thus mentally we can supplement missing parts of an element. Figure 4 shows how we used this law for our homepage usabilla.com. There is a white background with round corners that runs out towards the bottom of the page. Still, we do not perceive elements at the bottom of the page as falling apart, but we can imagine the content area continues.
Figure 4 – Law of Closure (Source)
Law of Good Continuation
The Law of Good Continuation can be applied to both the design aspect as well as the content aspect of elements. Eyes can easily and naturally follow elements that are arranged along a continuous line, those elements are therefore perceived as a unit. Further, elements that follow each other either logically or temporal, are perceived as unit as well. Figure 5 shows how Concept7 use the Law of Good Continuation on their website. Concept7 use a small arrow (at the bottom right hand side) to direct their users sight.
Figure 5 – Law of Good Continuation (Source)
Law of Figure and Ground
The Law of Figure and Ground describes how we rather perceive a figure than the background which flows around it. There are several factors that might contribute to this phenomenon. First of all, a defined figure has a more salient appearance whereas a background does not stand out. Furthermore, if one object is placed on top of another, in this case, a figure is placed on a background, the impression of depth emerges and therefore the figure actually appears to lie on top of the background.
Another reason that leads to this figure-ground assumption is that in case there is a border line between both objects, it is more likely interpreted to belong to the figure rather than the background. Figure 6 shows how we placed several logos on a colored background. Only the logos are perceived, not the shapes that result from placing the logo on the colored background.
Figure 6 – Law of Figure and Ground (Source)
Law of Simplicity
The Law of Simplicity indicates that elements are always perceived in the most easiest way possible. Simplicity of the whole emphasizes the importance of striking features. This can be used as an advantage on a website. Keep it simple and the focus on what really matters. We tried to keep our website as simple and clean as possible, so we can focus on what we really want to communicate. Figure 7 shows an extract from one of our pages.
Figure 7 – Law of Simplicity (Source)
Law of Symmetry
This law comprises the fact the we prefer symmetric appearances over asymmetric ones. Symmetric objects or arrangements are associated with positive aspects such as stability, consistency and structure. Asymmetric arrangements on the other hand give a rather negative impression, like something is wrong, missing, or out of balance.
Of course a website can never be completely symmetric, which is not at all the idea, but it is possible to pay attention to the perceived symmetry. So symmetry does not necessarily have to be created by content, but also by aesthetic elements such as color or design. For example, the head of the BBC website uses an abstract picture of a globe in the background to create a harmonious and balanced appearance.
Figure 8 – Law of Symmetry (Source)
Law of Experience
Another Gestalt Law that can be quite useful is the Law of Experience. It explains that we can expect others to use their prior knowledge in order to understand certain elements. A common example is related to grammar and spelling. For example sometimes we overlook a spelling mistake because we have memorized a word as a whole and do not look at every letter within the word specifically.
Outlook
There is a whole list of different Gestalt Laws, even more than we discussed in this article. Some Gestalt Laws are unique, others overlap each other, some are more useful for designing a website, others less, some might be easy to apply, others more complicated. But in general, we can conclude that Gestalt Laws do give some good advice, such as how to group elements that belong together, how to point the attention to elements that are important, or how to create an impression of balance and stability.
When designing or optimizing a website you should keep the Gestalt Laws in mind. Start with a solid and consistent design and create the base for a successful website. After working with Gestalt Laws for a while, you will see that they become internalized and that you will start to apply them naturally.
Also, you can specifically test whether or not you applied certain Gestalt Laws successfully. Do you want to find out if your users perceive certain content as a single unit? Or if they think that your website’s overall design appears to be harmonically or chaotic? Or if they actually focus their attention on the elements you want them to focus on? You can easily test your design and find answers to these questions – even in the conceptual stage.
Monday, February 7, 2011
25 Quotes on Humour
"Laugh as much as possible, always laugh. It's the sweetest thing one can do for oneself & one's fellow human beings." - Maya Angelou
"A good laugh makes any interview, or any conversation, so much better." - Barbara Walters
"He who laughs, lasts." - Mary Pettibone Poole
"A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing." - Laura Ingalls Wilder
"There is nothing like a gleam of humour to re-assure you that a fellow human being is ticking inside a strange face." - Eva Hoffman
"Through humour, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it." - Bill Cosby
"A person without a sense of humour is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road." - Henry Ward Beecher
"It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously." - Oscar Wilde
"When humour goes, there goes civilisation." - Erma Bombeck
"A sense of humour... is needed armour. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life." - Hugh Sidey
"A sense of humour is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done" - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humour in it." - Frank A. Clark
"No mind is thoroughly well organised that is deficient in a sense of humour." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Comedy is acting out optimism." - Robin Williams
"A well-developed sense of humour is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life." - William Arthur Ward
"Humour can alter any situation and help us cope at the very instant we are laughing." - Allen Klein
"Humour is just another defense against the universe." - Mel Brooks
"Humour is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it." - Langston Hughes
"Humour is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs." - Christopher Morley
"If you could choose one characteristic that would get you through life, choose a sense of humour." - Jennifer Jones
"Humour is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humour than in anything else. Because, you see, humour is truth." - Victor Borge
"Humour is the affectionate communication of insight." - Leo Rosten
"Like a welcome summer rain, humour may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you." - Langston Hughes
"Next to power without honour, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humour." - Eric Sevareid
"The more I live, the more I think that humour is the saving sense." - Jacob August Riis
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
5 Famous Philosophers' Greatest Hypocrisies
Or, sometimes, examples to be avoided.
In his new book, Examined Lives, Miller offers biographical sketches of 12 great philosophers, each of whom "struggled to life his life according to a deliberately chosen set of precepts and beliefs"—occasionally very unsuccessfully.
Brow Beat asked Miller, a professor of politics and director of liberal studies at the New School for Social Research, to offer five examples of times when famous philosophers utterly failed to put their theories into practice. Here's his list:
1. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) taught in his Politics that "man is by nature an animal intended to live in a polis," an independent city-state that was small enough for citizens to know each other personally. However, he tutored Alexander the Great and was notorious in the Greek world for his unblinking support of the Macedonian Empire. After the death of Alexander in 323 B.C., Greeks enraged by Aristotle's conduct tore down a plaque honoring him at Delphi and threw it into a well. (In the 20th century, archeologists found fragments of the plaque.) Forced to flee for his safety from Athens, Aristotle died a year later in a city garrisoned by Macedonian troops.
2. In his essays, Seneca (4 B.C.-A.D. 65) praised a life of moderation devoted to the pursuit of wisdom, but as one of the Nero's highest-ranking associates he was a master of propaganda. For example, shortly after the emperor had poisoned a rival, Seneca drafted a speech, "On Mercy," praising the good ruler for "innocence of wrong"—a fawning admonition. Four years later, he helped the emperor figure out how to finish up a botched murder of Agrippina, Nero's mother. When he admits such contradictions in his writing, Seneca is disarming: "I am not wise," he demurs, "Require me not to be equal to the best, but better than the worst." Nero eventually ordered Seneca to commit suicide—which he did by slicing open his veins in a tub of steaming hot water.
3. Although Augustine (354-430) once declared that "there is more than one road to wisdom," he helped the early Roman Catholic Church turn persecution into an intellectual art form, as ruthlessly effective in theory as it could sometimes be in practice. As a bishop of his church in Northern Africa, he ordered the destruction of pagan temples and impassively watched while his denunciations provoked a rash of religious suicides, saying that God had allowed the heretics to "perish in their own flames" by "a hidden, though just, disposition."
4. In his writings, René Descartes (1596-1650) claimed that he could secure an indubitable foundation for his philosophy by relying on the principles of pure mathematics. In reality, the inspiration for his scientific outlook was a series of dreams that he regarded, dubiously enough, as a revelation conveyed by a divine messenger. Years later, he attempted to prove in his Meditations that he had not fallen prey to "some malicious demon of the utmost cunning and power," because "it is impossible that God should ever deceive me"—one of the least persuasive arguments in the history of philosophy.
5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) devoted an entire treatise, Emile, to showing how to raise a perfectly virtuous child—yet he abandoned all of his own children with his long-term mistress to a foundlings' home. He pleaded that poverty and poor health made him unfit to be a proper parent, while protesting that no one loved children more than he did. But at the end of his life, he had to concede that living an examined life had proved far harder than he had initially thought-and that "to dare to profess great virtues" without the courage needed to practice them "is to be arrogant and rash."
5 Famous Philosophers' Greatest Hypocrisies
Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi
"I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage."
"Where there is love there is life."
"Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love."
"My life is an indivisible whole, and all my attitudes run into one another; and they all have their rise in my insatiable love for mankind."
"A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave."
"Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding."
"There is more to life than simply increasing its speed."
"I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people."
"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."
"A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act."
"I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul."
"Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame."
"Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible."
"If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide."
"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves."
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
"To believe what has not occurred in history will not occur at all, is to argue disbelief in the dignity of man."
"Hatred can be overcome only by love."
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
"Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good."
More quotes by Mahatma Gandhi from Answers.com
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Production Companies accepting scripts
Getting your unsolicited script made (that’s any script written by a writer who is not represented by an agent), or at least read by a production company, is about the toughest way to break into the industry, but lots of people still ask me about it so here’s my two-pennies-worth…
If I go back only ten years I could have written a list here of nearly a hundred film and television production companies who would accept scripts submitted by new writers (writers they didn’t know, and who didn’t have an agent). I know because I made a living reading for about twenty of them. Sadly, that is no longer the case. It costs money to employ readers to plough through tens of thousands of scripts each year. The reality is that of those thousands of spec scripts, only a handful will be good enough for the production company to want to develop it and try to get it made. In essence the return on the money invested in reading unsolicited scripts is too small to make it viable for most companies.
However, maybe you are that one in ten thousand whose script is pretty much perfect but you don’t yet have an agent or any credits to your name. So how do you get a production company to read your script if you don’t have an agent? Well, there are still a handful of places accepting unsolicited submissions. The two biggies are BBC Writersroom (for television drama) and the UK Film Council (for feature films). These are two large organisations with the structure and funding to read huge numbers of scripts and take forward any projects they come
across that really excite them.
I’ve listed below all the places I’ve found that do still accept unsolicited script submissions. Check out their websites and follow their submission guidelines. If in doubt, contact them and ask what their policy is.
Do bear in mind that I’m not recommending these production companies, I’m just pulling together information that’s already in the public domain. It’s up to you to do your homework.